FerroFluid Valve

Invention Coach:

Robert L. Read

Public Inventor(s):

Veronica Stuckey

Motivation:

A solid-state pump would be extremely valuable as something that could be made “on-a-chip”. This micro-scale application would allow fluid manipulation on a very small scale.

The basic idea that there may be frequency-effects on ferrofluid does not seem to have been written about much. That is, ferrofluid in a rapidly oscillating magnetic field may behave in interesting ways that allow magical things to be done. The iron nanonparticles within ferrofluid align themselves quickly with a magnetic field, but not instantaneously. A magnetic field modified on the time scale of this alignment could create unique situations. For example, there might be a certain frequency at which two varying coils could create an assymetric force on the fluid. If two or more simple coils around a pipe filled with ferrofluid could drive the fluid in one direction based on high-freqnecy oscillation, then it would be quite an acheivement. It is possible this is not possible in a simple tube, but may be possible in combination with an assymetric geometric, as we have successfully shown in our design file in Github.

Story:

This is our attempt at designing a passive ferrofluid one-way valve. If this is accomplished successfully, then it would be much easier to make a pump-on-a-chip for some microfluidic labs/researchers. My previous attempts to do this were deeply flawed (see below), but these flaws have been addressed and revised in our current design.

I am now attempting to build a (very simple) physics simulation of planar ferrofluid to test out some additional ideas before 3D printing. This was inspired by a Public Invention volunteer, Veronica S, who did the initial CAD design compiled from my previous thoughts, causing me to realize some flaws to the initial design proposal.

Status:

Highly active

Skills Needed

3D drafting skills, simulation work in Solidworks, a basic understanding of physics II principles, and some comprehension of the basics behind one-way valves for microfluidic devices

Quarterly Goals

  • Write the paper describing our recent success and submit it to a peer-reviewed academic journal.
  • Publish Veronica’s video on YouTube and promote it.

Collateral